


what you know

by ndnickerson



Category: Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene
Genre: Engaged Couple, F/M, Porn Battle, Porn With Plot, Resolved Sexual Tension, Seated Sex, Sexual Content, Travel, Woman on Top
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 00:54:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the amnesty round for Porn Battle XII; prompts: backseat, frostbite, candlelight, stone, locked, dreaming. Nancy and Ned miss a date while investigating a haunting in Scotland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what you know

"It's locked."

"It can't be locked." Nancy Drew swept a strand of red-gold hair out of her wide eyes. "Ned, please say you're joking."

Ned Nickerson glanced back at her, his handsome, square-jawed face grim. "I wish. Guess we really were hearing things earlier—the gang coming back."

She moved around him, and he made a dismissive gesture, stepping back. "Yeah, that's all it's going to take—someone who weighs half as much as I do, pulling on it."

Nancy shot him a look as she tugged on the door. "Maybe—it just got stuck—it's an old door..."

Ned shook his head. "Be my guest, though," he said, sticking his hands in his pockets. He walked a few paces back, his jaw set.

He was angry. She knew he was angry; she just wished she could do something about it. Managing to will the door open would be a good start.

She and Ned had arrived in Scotland only a few days ago. One of Ned's good friends from Emerson, James Tolliver, was spending a semester in Edinburgh, and Ned had managed to get in touch with him soon after they had landed. It was only during tea with her great-grandmother, Lady Douglas, that Nancy had heard about a mysterious light haunting some of the nearby castle ruins. The countryside was littered with the remains, crumbling piles of stone spotted with moss, and it had seemed like an easy enough plan. Find the supposedly haunted ruins, discover the motivation behind it—not for a second did Nancy think ghosts were actually responsible—and turn whatever evidence she found over to the police. She had solved harder cases practically in her sleep.

She had promised they would make it back in time to meet up with James, catch a movie or hit a pub or two with some of his other friends. And she had meant it.

But—she glanced at her watch, tugging desperately at the door—they weren't going to make it if they didn't leave soon. She took the knob in both hands, tilting back to use all her weight, and it still didn't budge.

The remains of the castle were fascinating, but the tension knotting in her belly, while she knew Ned's frustration was only growing, ruined the charm for her. She gave Ned a small smile. "Well... there has to be another way out. I'm sure there is."

Their search turned up another locked door, and at least this one yielded to her lockpick kit. Inside they found three tall stout barrels, a few flashlights, and a long white robe. She stood beside Ned in the doorway, and she tried to avoid looking up at the sky, which had grown significantly darker and heavier with clouds since they had arrived. They peered together into the gloom of the small storeroom.

"Well, that answers that question. And at least we won't die of thirst immediately."

"Maybe alcohol poisoning, though." She shot him another look.

Finally, though, Ned spotted a bricked-over doorway, almost buried in the back corner of the castle. The mortar had mostly crumbled away, and together they worked methodically to remove the bricks, to make a hole large enough to pass through. A stubborn drift of earth on the other side of the age-swelled door gave Ned some trouble, but finally they were out. The sky had gone a dim purple with the sunset, their limbs and faces were streaked with dirt and their fingers were trembling with exertion.

"You still have the car keys, right?"

Ned nodded as they began to skirt around the ruins. "Maybe if we can find a shortcut back, we can..."

He trailed off, his brisk steps slowing, and Nancy took a few steps past him, but her mouth fell open. Their rental car, a fuel-efficient subcompact, was tilted forward on slashed tires.

"Guess they really didn't want to take any chances. _God_ , I can't believe this." Ned shook his head, and she could practically feel his temper rising.

"Well, we could drive it to the closest house..."

Ned shot her a baleful look. "Even if we _did_ drive on those tires—which would play merry hell with the car—we'd have to kiss the deposit goodbye. Plus, I don't remember too many houses in the area..."

Nancy shook her head, refusing to just give up. "We can change the tire. And if there's an air compressor in the trunk we can blow up the flat one and if it's a slow leak..."

"Totally. Because when we were packing for the picnic we threw an air compressor in the basket."

The night was fast approaching, turning the light into a grey indistinct blur. Ned wordlessly handed over the keys when she asked for them, and she opened the trunk to find the large quilt, the basket, and underneath, the spare tire and jack.

"Here," Ned said tonelessly, reaching for the keys again as he headed for the driver's seat, then reversed when he remembered it was on the other side of the car. She heard him pop the hood as she began to maneuver the spare tire out of the trunk.

The car vibrated as he shut the hood. "So, you can stop now," he called to her.

"What?"

"Distributor cap's gone too."

Nancy let the tire fall back into its well, her mouth dropping open again. "They took the damn _distributor cap?_ "

Ned nodded. He was starting to look resigned, and that was somehow worse. "Yep."

"Oh... oh God, Ned. I'm so sorry."

He shrugged. "I don't know why I was expecting anything different," he said quietly. "You are notoriously bad at estimating time, or turning down anything the least bit mysterious..."

His voice wasn't harsh or furious, but the words cut through her anyway. "I am sorry," she told him, leaving the trunk open as she reached for his hand. "I am. I'll make it up to you."

The ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Well, in the meantime... looks like they have us right where they want us."

Nancy glanced behind her, at the castle, then at the car. "They're coming back," she said, and it was barely a question.

"They left some product here," he pointed out. "And if they wanted us to be able to leave, they would have left us with a functional car." He slid his hands into his pockets again, and she shivered a little against the building wind. The heavy clouds were racing over the moon, and even though she could feel the trace of humidity in the breeze playing over her skin, the nearly perpetual rain felt like it might hold off.

They had used a portion of the rare sunlight for their picnic earlier, and at least they had been joking and laughing with each other then. Her stomach felt heavy in sympathy with his obvious disappointment.

"So what do you want to do?" she asked. "We could try to get to a house, call for a tow, but..."

He shook his head. "It's getting too dark and we're more likely to get lost than anything."

"But we can't stay here. When they come back..."

"Yeah. I'd say we could just bunk out in the backseat, but we'd be sitting ducks."

Nancy sighed, rubbing her belly. "Did we have any leftovers that aren't ruined by now?"

They split the rest of the water, and the handful of chocolate chip cookies left over from the picnic were soft and warm from the time in the car. She used a palmful of the water to wipe off some of the dirt on her arms and hands, and she felt marginally more human after, but the sky had gone fully dark.

"So we can't stay in the car and we can't wait inside."

"Yeah." He nodded.

"So, where does that leave us?"

"Well, probably... over there."

She grabbed the blanket, pulling it over her shoulders to protect her from the chill in the air, as she followed him to the other side of the castle ruins. She had barely noticed the small shack on the west side of the castle, and while she wasn't particularly optimistic about it—it looked, if anything, even more run-down than the castle ruins—at least it was something.

The ancient wooden door was warped and swelled, the knob rusty. Ned had to put his shoulder into it, but he finally pushed open the door, and Nancy glanced around. Through one of the open windows they had a pretty good view of the road, but half the roof had collapsed, leaving the shack mostly open to the elements. The floor appeared to be all dirt, and the walls listed slightly, to an almost drunken angle. A good stiff wind might be able to collapse the shack, but it hadn't come yet.

Force of habit made her stride cautiously over the interior. Ned made an inquisitive noise, and she glanced back at him. "If there's a secret passage this would be a great entrance," she pointed out, pushing a lock of hair off her cheek as she glanced down, looking for patterns in the dirt.

Ned's chuckle was incredulous. "Well, do me a favor—if you find one, wait until I get back to explore." He opened the door and a nascent, irrational fear clenched her heart.

"Where are you going?"

"It's dark as hell in here. I'm going to grab one of the flashlights."

"Be careful."

Ned raised his eyebrows. "Same to you."

She abandoned her search—she couldn't feel any boards creaking under her feet, anyway—and went to the window to watch him stride toward the castle, his steps purposeful. He made quick work of negotiating their makeshift doorway, and Nancy glanced down at her left hand when he was out of sight, at the diamond engagement ring there.

A part of her was surprised that he had actually taken that step, to seriously propose marriage. Before that moment, before she had heard herself answer "Yes," she hadn't been totally sure what her answer would be.

She loved Ned, and she knew that, beyond a shadow of a doubt. She just couldn't shake the feeling that he was going to want her to change, and she would never be happy if she knew that what she was wasn't making _him_ happy.

The strong beam of the flashlight played over the ground as Ned approached. The quilt was a smothering weight over her shoulder, and when he walked in she shifted it down to her hands, glancing anxiously at his face to see if he was still angry. Spending the night with him in that state definitely wasn't anything she would look forward to.

"You okay?"

He shrugged. "They had some diffusers for the flashlights in there," he said. "So that's how they're making that strange light. I was hoping I could find a board or a bat or something, but other than throwing some crumbling pieces of rock at them, I think our best bet is to stay hidden."

She nodded. "Although if they really want to get us, they'll search until they find us..."

"Unless they think we tried to walk to the nearest house." He brightened a little. "We can try to grab their car and leave _them_ stranded here. That would be great."

She elected to take the first watch. If the guys came back to finish the two of them off, they needed to be ready, and their stakeout the night before meant Ned was flagging a little. He settled into a corner, after making her promise to wake him as soon as she saw anyone come up the road, and she found a good vantage point.

If the gang was smuggling something—whatever was in those casks seemed like it was probably a good bet—the ghost might be meant to scare people away from the castle. It was remote enough that it could be used fairly easily, and she considered for a moment. Direct route between the sea and a pretty major thoroughfare. If she could catch them in the act, that would be perfect. She and Ned could tie them up, call the authorities, take care of the problem...

Ned.

Nancy shook her head, wondering what was taking the gang so long.

Unless they weren't coming back.

Unless they had locked Nancy and Ned in the castle ruins to keep them _away_ from somewhere else.

Then there would be no car they could borrow to get away. Not tonight, anyway.

Nancy's shoulders slumped. That made a lot of sense. Besides, any _other_ couple who found themselves locked into castle ruins probably _would_ blame a ghost, and that would just help feed the hysteria.

She glanced down and saw that she was absently turning the ring around and around on her finger.

Now that Ned was graduated, and working at a job, she couldn't imagine that he would have that much time to help her with cases anymore. A small part of her was kind of glad about that. She hated that he worried about her, that he was protective of her. But, she had to admit, she enjoyed it, too. He wanted to stand between her and the world, and she knew she could handle herself, but he had always wanted to be by her side.

What did he think would change, once he placed that wedding band on her finger? She had been free to do as she wished for so long...

A pair of headlights swept down the road outside, and Nancy's chin jerked up, but the car passed without slowing. She glanced at her watch. Her intuition was telling her that the gang wasn't coming back, that they were alone. Through the window, through the small gaps in the shack's walls, she could feel the air, and the sky had been swept clean, leaving only the glittering pinpricks of the stars high above them.

Ned's head had fallen to the side, and she gazed at him, wondering if he was dreaming, wondering what he was dreaming about. Wondering if he was still angry or disappointed, wondering if that would ever stop. She had sworn a long time ago that she had no intention of changing for _anything_ , anyone other than herself, and she still believed that.

Finding the balance was so damn hard, and her father had started talking about what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She knew that every now and then his office employed a firm of private investigators, but she wasn't sure if that was what she wanted to do with her life, or if she wanted to become a police officer, maybe a state investigator, maybe...

She just had so many options, and the thought of being paid to do what she loved... well, that wasn't half bad either. It was just, the thought of being married... she couldn't imagine it, not really. Her father had told Hannah when he would be home for dinner and it was on the table at that time. Every marriage Nancy had ever seen in any significant depth was fictional.

She glanced over at Ned. He was shivering a little in his sleep.

Nancy looked out the window one last time, then went to her fiancé, dropping to her knees beside him. She cupped his cheek in her palm and smiled when his eyes opened.

"Hey," she murmured. "You okay? You were shivering."

She offered him the blanket, noticing that his arms were tight around him, and he tried to shrug it off. "My turn to watch?" he asked, his voice a little rough, and Nancy shivered a little at the sound.

Nancy shrugged. "I have a feeling they aren't coming back tonight," she told him, and explained her reasoning.

Ned sighed. "Great," he said quietly, then gave her a small smile. "Sounds like we have some plans to make."

Nancy nodded, then looked down at her hand. "Ned, do you... do you still want to get married?"

Ned blinked. "Yeah, Nan, of course I do. Why? Is there something... going on?"

Nancy's eyes widened. "You mean...? No, there's nothing going on, not like that. I just... I mean, I know how disappointed you are about tonight..."

Ned shook his head. "It's okay. We'll be able to catch up with them later. I was just looking forward to it."

Nancy looked down. "And I'm really sorry about that. I really am. I keep promising you things and I feel like I just keep disappointing you."

He sighed a little, and she was frowning when he reached for her, crooking his finger under her chin and tilting her face up so he could look into her eyes. "I'd love to lie to you," he said quietly. "I am disappointed, and whenever you have to break a date with me, whenever plans fall through, of course that disappoints me. But we're together tonight, and that means the night hasn't been a total loss." He smiled.

"Yeah, but after we get married, when you tell me you'll be home for dinner and you walk in and I'm, I don't know, tied up in a closet somewhere..."

Ned frowned. "Do you plan on that happening a lot...?"

"I never _plan_ on it happening, but, I mean... I never _plan_ to miss our dates either," she pointed out. "It's just sometimes I see the bad guys and I have to follow them _right then_ and—"

"I know."

"And I—" She took a breath and it all exploded. "And I don't know what you _want_ , and you're going to ask me to be something I'm not, and I'm going to hate it when I can't because I love you so much and I _hate_ disappointing you—"

She stopped, frowning, panting a little, and Ned shook his head. "So, uh, I can handle cooking dinner. I've gotten a lot better with a grill." He chuckled. "You think I'm going to want you to change, though?"

She nodded. "Of course you are," she said miserably.

"What do you think marriage _is_ , Nan?"

She shook her head slowly. "Uh... eating dinner together and talking about how our days went. Probably paying some bills and... having sex every now and then."

"Oh, only every now and then," Ned said with a little smile.

She made a face at him. " _Ned..._ "

He shrugged. "I want to marry you because I love you and I want to spend all the time I can with you. And it doesn't hurt that you are smokin' hot and _amazing_ in bed..."

She blushed just a little. "I am _not._ But you can't tell me that you aren't hoping, just a little, that I'll settle down and find a _normal_ job and be home every night..."

Ned tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I'd love that," he admitted. "I'd love everything you talked about. But I didn't ask you to marry me because I wanted to have the right to order you around. If you _want_ me to order you around a little, especially in the bedroom, I would be very open to exploring that..."

She shook her head, a small smile on her face. "Okay, if you totally refuse to be serious."

"I think no one else on earth is going to have the kind of marriage we have," he said. "But at least we won't be apart for months on end... and it would be different if you broke _every_ date we made, or if I thought that we had no chance of being happy together. Being around you makes me happy, and if that's not the way you feel..."

"Oh God, Ned, no. No. I love being around you. I just hate the thought that you resent what I do."

He shook his head. "You enjoy it too much. And when we're married, if you could, I don't know, talk a few people into paying you for investigating, just so we could make our mortgage payment..."

She chuckled. "Yeah, Dad expressed a similar sentiment."

"It's just a thought." He leaned forward and kissed her softly. "I love you."

"I love you too," she whispered against his lips. "And I think I said something about making tonight up to you."

"Well, it is awfully cold," he said. "I'd hate for either of us to get frostbite, and the best way I can think to prevent that is you getting under this blanket with me..."

Nancy reached for the first button of her shirtdress, and Ned's eyes widened a little as she worked her way down. "Well, I read that clothes just... get in the way..."

When they were both naked, Nancy sank onto her fiancé's lap, and he immediately pulled the blanket around both of them. "Mmm. Now all we need is a roaring fire and some wine and, maybe, a roof over our heads, and this would be perfect."

"You just like how flattering firelight is on your skin."

"Mine? Makes you look gorgeous. _More_ gorgeous," he corrected himself, and she shivered when he cupped her breast. His hand was cold, and her nipples were already hard from the chill in the night air, but when he brushed his thumb over the sensitive tip of her breast, she sighed in pleasure. "Hell, even one of those fancy candles you like..."

"Guess we'll just have to make do," she said softly, trailing her cool fingertips down his side to his hip. "Wine and candlelight next time."

He nodded and pressed his lips to hers, and when she began to trail her fingers up and down his cock, his tongue plunged into her mouth. He cupped her other breast, his thumbs brushing back and forth over her nipples, and she inched forward, rubbing the ball of her thumb against the head of his cock. When she was almost straddling him, she shifted her weight from her knees to her feet, sliding one arm around his neck to hold her balance as she kept fondling his cock, and he nipped at her lower lip, letting out a soft, pleased moan.

"Mmm, baby, feels so good," Ned mumbled. "You still feel cold, though. Let me warm you up."

He gave her one last hard kiss, then nuzzled his way down her neck, and she arched to give him room as he brushed his lips just lightly across the tops of her breasts. She angled her hips, gripping his shoulders as she rubbed the slit of her sex against the hard length of his erection, her clit rubbing against the underside of his shaft, and when he suckled against her nipple she shuddered, making a soft pleased whimper. "Mmm, yes," she murmured, closing her eyes as he lashed his tongue back and forth against her nipple, then gently bit the underside of her breast. He moved to the other, stroking her wet nipple as he pressed his other palm into the small of her back, guiding her as she ground against him.

"Nan," he murmured against her breast, and closed his teeth gently around her nipple. Her clit brushed the tip of his cock and she moaned, her hips trembling a little as she kept rubbing against him.

"Baby get inside me," she moaned, and he kissed her between her breasts before he straightened. His dark-eyed gaze was intent on hers and she was panting, and when he guided her up, angling himself under her, she leaned forward, catching his earlobe in her mouth.

"Please, baby, please, oh _God_ ," she moaned, and when he was just barely fitted inside her she tilted forward, the tips of her breasts rubbing against his chest. He rubbed the ball of his thumb against her clit and she trembled as she sank onto his cock, working her way down until their hips were flush.

Nancy hadn't lost her virginity to Ned until they were engaged, and it hadn't been so long since that night, their first time. The sensation of him inside her, filling her, was still amazing and new to her, and when she took his full length and then gently circled her hips, his thumb still working against her clit, they both moaned aloud.

"Mmm. You feel so good," he growled. "Harder, baby, faster..."

She adjusted her weight and he tilted back a little, and when she began to bounce up and down on his cock, he let out a louder moan, flicking her clit even harder, his other hand coming up to pluck at her breast. She cried out in pleasure when he squeezed her nipple between forefinger and thumb, then did the same to the other. "Yeah, baby, God, you are so fucking sexy," he panted.

"Oh God, _Ned_ ," she sobbed, as her inner flesh first began to spasm around him. She rode him harder, faster, and he squeezed her breast, frantically flicking the edge of his thumbnail over her clit. "Oh _God_ yes yes yesyesyesyes baby feels so _fucking_ good—"

"Come," he demanded, and she could feel that the blanket had fallen down from her shoulders, but the air actually felt good against her flushed skin. Her arousal was making her shudder with desperation, and her sobs rose until she was almost screaming, and Ned was rocking up under her. "God, your pussy feels so good, baby," Ned growled, and Nancy flushed a deeper red, tipping her head back as she finally reached her climax.

"Oh _fuck_ ," she sobbed out, rocking her hips side to side, almost corkscrewing down onto his cock, and Ned dug his fingers into her, groaning as he let himself come. She sank down onto him as he pulsed inside her and stayed locked to him, skin to skin, wrapped around each other.

Her head was against his shoulder, but her eyes fluttered open as Ned tilted forward. He was reaching for the blanket, and he pulled it up around them again, over her bare shoulders, and then she realized she was shaking as her sweat dried on her skin.

"Mmmm," she murmured against his neck. "I like making things up to you."

"I like making things up to you too," he murmured, stroking his hand down her hair. "And I think by the time we get out of here, you are _definitely_ going to owe me."

"Really," she whispered into his skin. "So when I miss dinner..."

Ned chuckled. "Baby," he whispered, then kissed her earlobe, the soft flesh beneath, "when you absolutely have to miss dinner, when you call me and I have to fight my way through a gang of Taiwanese gangsters to get you back... oh yeah, you'll owe me."

She brought her head up, her blue eyes low-lidded. "I'll try not to make a habit of it," she said softly. "Maybe some nights we can just have sex because we feel like it."

"Yeah, every now and then," he teased her.

She made a face at him, then leaned forward to kiss him. "No one else in the world could possibly be as amazing as you," she whispered against his lips.

"And no one else in the world could be as exasperatingly single-minded as you," he replied. "Or nearly as fascinating."

She smiled. "I just don't know how it's going to be," she admitted, searching his eyes. "Before, all I had to worry about was me, and now..."

"Well, I've been worried for the both of us for quite a while now," he told her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Besides, Nan... we'll be figuring it out together. And the one thing I know for sure is that I can't wait to be your husband."

"Me either," she whispered.


End file.
